Portal:Current events/2009 December 24
December 24, 2009 (Thursday)
- Pope Benedict XVI is knocked down by a woman during a procession before the Christmas Eve Mass at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City. He is uninjured, but Roger Cardinal Etchegaray suffers a hip fracture. (Sky News) (BBC)
- At least 40 people are killed and many injured after a tour bus plunges into a ravine near Cuzco, Peru. (CNN) (UPI) (Xinhua)
- Iran says it is to invalidate banknotes which have been pasted with slogans in the name of the Opposition by 8 January 2010. (BBC)
- The Indian Army kills nine members of the Peoples Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak and Kanglei Yana Kan Lup during three incidents in Manipur. (Times of India) (BBC)
- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signs a decree ordering a 20% cut of staff at the Interior Ministry after a series of scandals involving the police. (RIA Novosti) (Reuters)
- China sentences a further five people to death over riots in Ürümqi, Xinjiang in July, bringing the total number of people sentenced to death to 22. (Al Jazeera) (IOL)
- Vietnamese authorities charge human rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh with attempts to "overthrow the state". (BBC) (MSN Malaysia)
- Turkish police arrest over 43 campaigners and members of the banned Kurdish Communities Union in raids. (Today's Zaman) (Deutsche Welle)
- At least three bodies have been recovered and 23 are missing after a collision between a ferry and a fishing boat in the Philippines. (Philippine Star) (CBC)
- A suicide bomb attack kills at least eight people in Kandahar, Afghanistan. (BBC)
- Bomb attacks in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Hilla leave 23 dead. (Al Jazeera) (BBC)
- Thousands of Christian pilgrims gather in Bethlehem in the West Bank to mark Christmas. (BBC) (Reuters) (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
- Niger issues arrest warrants for three opposition leaders including a former President, as it condemns the Economic Community of West African States' refusal to recognise the legitimacy of President Mamadou Tandja. (BBC) (African Press Agency) (allAfrica.com)
- The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu speaks out against a bill being debated in Uganda that would outlaw homosexuality. (BBC)
- The United States Senate passes a health-care bill expected to extend insurance coverage to 30 million additional Americans, in a party-line vote, 60-39. (BBC)(CNN)
- An Israeli man is shot dead by Palestinian gunmen in the northern West Bank. (The Jerusalem Post)
- At least 30 suspected Al-Qaeda militants are killed in an airstrike in Shabwah Governorate, Yemen. (Yemen News Agency) (AFP) (BBC)
- Venezuela orders businesses to cut electricity consumption by 20% as droughts threaten generation capacity at the 10.2 gigawatt Guri hydroelectric power station. (BBC News) (Merco Press)
- The Greek parliament approves emergency cuts in government spending for 2010 in an attempt to reduce the country's budget deficit. (Financial Times) (BBC News)
- A lawsuit is threatened against the Indonesian Navy and International Organization for Migration after a 29-year-old Sri Lankan asylum seeker is allowed to die through medical negligence after vomiting blood and having a seizure in Indonesia. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
- Hewlett-Packard admits face detection software on its laptops has trouble detecting dark-skinned faces, leading to casual claims of racism by some. (Christian Science Monitor) (BBC) (TechWeb)